Restoration Blog

Tuesday silt sampling and Patricia investigating obstruction at Ryeford.

by: Andrew R.

The day was preempted by a work boat being put at Bonds Mill bridge.  Agreement of two wonderful Santus guys to be on site at 8:30 am. 4 budding CCT volunteers willing to get dirty, but in fact it was a very clean operation.

One kind lady setting out regular distance with the trundle wheel. One  outboard operator. One anchor man and of course our resident/willing silt extraction tool operator. The two young men from Santus came with pots, jars, labels and of course gloves. 

It was quite enlightening how the sample differed from the railway going west towards depot. Varying from sloppy to grainy to solid and in one place blue clay at a 1.2 m depth. Under a bridge.

The Dredging team have this of to an art now and did it in record time.

The Santus team was made up of and experienced sampler and a new boy who will be left in charge of sample gathering on Wednesday west of the A38.

As this finished by 12 two Dredger volunteers went back to Ryeford to explore the large hard objects 100 metres east of Ryeford lock. It became clear how large the area was and seems to be a concentrate layer of rubble which can’t be picked up easily.

The trainee on Patricia is showing a high level of skill and care and should get his WRG 022 authorisation very soon.